Rhymes for Young Ghouls is set on the fictional Red Crow Mi’gMaq reservation in the year 1976. By government decree, every Indian child under the age of 18 must attend residential school. In the kingdom of the crow, that means imprisonment at St. Dymphna’s. That means being at the mercy of “Popper” (Krupa), the sadistic Indian agent who runs the school.

At 15, Aila (Jacobs) is the weed princess of Red Crow. Hustling with her uncle Burner (Oakes), she sells enough dope to pay Popper her “truancy tax”, keeping her out of St. D’s. But when Aila’s drug money is stolen and her father Joseph (Gould) returns from prison, the precarious balance of Aila’s world is destroyed.